


count to ten

by Trickster88



Series: i started a joke that started the whole world crying [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Irondad, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Shaky Hands, Strap in, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Whump, Whumptober 2019, it's about the ANGst, the major character death is for peter, this is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better y'all, ya boi is dusted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 10:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20852102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trickster88/pseuds/Trickster88
Summary: Clench,he thinks, and he clenches his fingers so hard his bones crack, loud in the relative silence of his lab.Unclench. Count to ten. Breathe deep. You can’t choke on dust that isn’t there.*Written for the prompt 'shaky hands' for Whumptober 2019.





	count to ten

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's back. Back again. It's me.
> 
> That's RIGHT! It's me, and I'm gonna try not to fail at this SO - Whumptober, here we go! Fair warning that this is totally unbeta'd.
> 
> Written for the prompt 'shaky hands' for Whumptober 2019.

_ Clench. Unclench. Count to ten. Breathe deep, and try not to choke on dust that isn’t there. _

Tony’s tongue still curls in his mouth, dry, unable to stop the tightening in his chest, the way his hands curl, refusing to unclench when he tells them to. He knows it’s good advice - Dr. McKinnon has never been wrong yet, in the eight years Tony has been seeing her - but this time, he just can’t seem to follow her instructions.

(Kinda figures it would be the time he needs to the most, doesn’t it?)

His hands tremble against his chest, and Tony makes an effort to pull them away, to stare down at them and make sure they’re clean. The problem is, they don’t  _ feel  _ clean, no matter how many times he washes them.

(Pepper caught him emptying an entire bottle of soap onto his hands after he made it home, against all odds. Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, eyes blurry with tears, sobs caught in his chest. She’d held him, and he’d cradled her with shaking, soapy hands, thanking whatever God might be out there that she wasn’t taken with everything else.)

If he’s being honest, though, they’ve never felt clean; not since the humvee flipped, since the soldier (he was a  _ kid _ , probably barely twenty,  _ so achingly young _ , Tony thinks, now that he’s older) stepped out to protect him and was struck down with weapons of Tony’s own design.

Once you discover the dirt is there, can you ever really get it out? Bring out the industrial bleach, sure, but those stains have set. Some idiot put them in the dryer and now, well. 

Now he feels like he’s just wasting water. 

Tony braces his hands on the metal workshop desk in front of him, feeling the vibrations ripple down through the table. He remembers it so vividly, on Titan - his hand went right through, like it was nothing. It went through because it  _ was _ nothing - nothing but nothing, flesh and blood crumbling to dust in a way that should be utterly, physically impossible. He thinks it’s honestly more horrific, this private affair - not that anyone dying isn’t horrific, but. Yinsen - he died in battle, he died fighting. The kid, shit, he didn’t get that chance he just...faded away.

He felt it, too, Tony knows he did. The panic in the boy’s eyes, he’ll never forget it - he knows the kid was holding on with everything he had, that he didn’t go easily, that it  _ hurt _ . He was scared and in pain and lost and then he was  _ gone _ .

The thought makes Tony gag, makes his knuckles creak on the metal table, and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to imagine the red dirt and blackened blood still staining his hands. 

_ Clench _ , he thinks, and he clenches his fingers so hard his bones crack, loud in the relative silence of his lab.  _ Unclench. Count to ten. Breathe deep. You can’t choke on dust that isn’t there. _

It’s the anniversary effect, and Tony knows that. He’s been doing better lately, but today he’d woken up and - shit, it’s been two years since that dusty, faraway planet. Two years since he choked on dust that  _ was  _ there, two years since Thanos stabbed him straight through the stomach -

Two years since he’s seen Peter Parker’s face crumble into nothingness. Two years since they lost. Since he lost. Two  _ years _ .

His throat aches, and his hands shake, but steadily, his breathing evens out. Maybe there will be a day when his hands don’t shake - but he doesn’t think there will ever be a day when the grief doesn’t sting his tongue like acid, eating away at his insides. 

“Fuck,” Tony mutters to himself, slowly unclenching his hands. Counting to ten was never going to help him. Look at him, he can’t even make it to two. 

Tony draws his hands over his face, scrubbing away the would-be tears. It’s been two years - hasn’t he cried enough? His endocrine system must be exhausted by now. Isn’t crying supposed to make you feel  _ better _ , in the long run?

(He doesn’t feel worse, though. Frankly, he just feels  _ tired and aching and so, so sad _ .)

Tony doesn’t see what good it will do, but he tries the exercise again anyway. Pepper would want him to - she loves him, and he loves her. He’s doing this for her, like he does so many things - never for himself. 

(The day they get to the self-love part of his therapy sessions, Tony will be a very old man. Older than he is now, and Jesus, how the hell is that fair? He gets to grow old and grey and the kid never ages a day past seventeen - )

He wishes he could look at her without seeing his own sadness reflected back, but that’s the way the world is now. ‘Grateful’ isn’t the word Tony would use to describe it, but as he’s painfully aware, he’s not the one with a choice.

Clench. Unclench. Count to ten.

**One. **

_ Thanos did this. _

**Two.**

_ I couldn’t stop it. _

**Three.**

_ I should have stopped it. _

Tony can feel his heart pounding anxiously in his chest, and he tries to reel in his thoughts, but he can’t. He’s never been able to, not even once; his mind moves too quickly. It’s a blessing and a curse, but for now: he just spirals down, down, down.

**Four. **

_ The world is gone. _

**Five.**

_ It’s not coming back. _

**Six.**

_ Peter’s gone. _

**Seven.**

_ Peter’s  _ _ dead _ .

**Eight.**

_ It’s my fault. _

**Nine.**

_ My. _

**Ten.**

_ Fault. _

This probably isn’t what his therapist had in mind when she taught him this exercise, but hell, Tony’s never been good at following instructions. He tries to think of the kid, the way he looked when he laughed - when he tossed his head back, right here in this very room, sending his mop of curls every which way.

(Will there be a day when he doesn’t remember? When he can’t hear Peter’s laugh in his head, when it really is gone forever?)

_ Breathe deep,  _ Tony thinks, and his hands feel gritty.  _ You can’t choke on dust that isn’t there. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please consider [the Big Bang fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20798009) I just finished!
> 
> Follow my writing blog at [thwip--thwip](http://thwip--thwip.tumblr.com) for more debatably decent content.  
[Rebloggable link](https://thwip--thwip.tumblr.com/post/188073773715/count-to-ten-by-trickster88-clench-he-thinks-and) <3
> 
> Comment if you liked it! Love you all 3000.


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